Sunday, 29 January 2017

Big Garden Birdwatch 2017

We took part in the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch this morning. The idea is that everybody spends an hour over the weekend counting the birds in their garden. You then log the results on the Big Garden Birdwatch website, providing the RSPB with data about how our back garden birds are faring. We chose to do our count early this morning before the rain started, so the kids were excited to be doing the count in their pyjamas!

We saw 28 birds of 12 species:

1 blackcap: We were thrilled to see a female blackcap hiding in the bushes, making an occasional brief trip to the bird table. I thought I saw her a few days ago, but wasn't sure.

Only the male blackcap has a black cap. The female has a ginger cap.

4 goldfinches: We are starting to see more and more goldfinches in the garden and they are often around. They love the teasel and evening primrose seeds, so I always leave them for them.

6 house sparrows: We love our cheeky house sparrow family. There are often a lot more than 6 of them, but that's all we saw this morning.

2 dunnocks

1 robin

2 long-tailed tits

2 blackbirds

2 woodpigeons

2 starlings

2 blue tits

1 chaffinch

3 red kites: Whistlejacket was sat in his tree and there were two more kites sat in a tree nearby. He was quite cross that they were there and he was whistling at them (a lot). They were just ignoring him!